We haunt every medium we make.

May 09, 2013

Inhabiting an abandoned skyscraper

A Venezuelan skyscraper failed to fill its spaces with business, and fell empty. Gradually poor people moved in, squatting in what sounds like a disturbing ruin:

‘rooms with a view’ lacked walls, working electricity, running water, windows, balcony railings and certainly no elevator, yet the new residents settled in as high as the 30th floor. Chilling stories of small children playing too close to the edge and deadly winds gusting through living quarters were a constant reminder of the risks they were taking.

Yet those squatters self-organized into a healthy community, turning the Gothic vertical slum into what some call a near utopia.